The Science and Philosophy of Politics Chapter One (Draft)

About the Draft

This title is part of the Politicoid Series. It is more or less an alpha version of The Science and Philosophy of Politics. As an alpha version, much of the work is incomplete. In some cases the sections are going to be completely blank. As I have more time, I will add more content, citations, and links to additional reading, as well as quizzes, which can be used to test your own knowledge of the material.

Symbolic Logic

Symbolic logic is both a field in mathematics and in philosophy. It is important to a language in which we can express logical statements. The most basic form of symbolic logic is propositional calculus. In propositional calculus, we create “sentences” using the terms “not”, “and”, “or”, and “implies”, along with variables: items whose truth value can change. These variables usually take the names P, Q, and R. One of the easiest ways to look at such statements is through truth tables.

Philosophy

Introduction

It’s no small task to discuss all that philosophy entails, nor is it even simple to define philosophy. As the roots of the word describe, philosophy relates to wisdom and the love of it. In my take, philosophy is the set of all questions and answers that have ever been asked and ever will be asked regarding the nature of existence.

Philosophers

The following are just some of the many great philosophical minds. They are by no means any more or less important than ones that I have not mentioned. It would just be impossible to discuss all of them.

Socrates & Plato

Socrates & Plato Socrates himself never wrote. In fact, while pretty much every expert agrees that Socrates existed, it is not so clear the type of person he was. All we know of Socrates is that which was written about him by Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers of the time. The largest source of information is probably from Plato, one of Socrates’ students. Like other philosophers of his time, questions with which Plato wrestles include among others, “what is reality” and “what is justice”.

A common theme that pervades the works of Plato, and others of his time was the concept of the “ideal”. Today we often call the “ideal” version of something, the “Platonic” version of it. For instance, when we look at the picture to the right, it is a representation of a circle. However, is it really a circle? Clearly it isn’t perfectly round, and in fact, what was really drawn was an 18 sided polygon. Yet even still, we can imagine the circle. The circle that we imagine, that abstract circle with no flaws is the Platonic circle.

Allegory of the Cave

Allegory of a cave revolves around the idea of perception of reality and our incomplete view of this reality. The majority of the story takes place from within a cave, where all that can be seen of the outside world are shadows. Now the men living in this cave, having lived there all their lives, assume that shadows to be true forms.

Aristotle

Aristotle was a student of Plato. Aristotle displayed a break from the common theme of his time. Instead of worrying about perfection and ideals, he focused almost purely on the physical world. While other philosophers were merely forming ideas about existence, Aristotle was putting them to use.

Analytica Priora

Analytica Priora or Prior Analytics is one of the few works of Aristotle which still remain. The book delves into logical deduction as well as the scientific process. This text is important because it more or less acts as the historical foundation on which the scientific process was founded.

Introduction

We must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science. We must next define a premise, a term, and a syllogism, and the nature of a perfect and of an imperfect syllogism; and after that, the inclusion or non inclusion of one term in another as in a whole, and what we mean by predicating one term of all, or none, of another.

Nietzsche

A common theme of Nietzsche’s time in Europe was Nihilism. Many people often incorrectly think that Nietzsche was a nihilist. In fact, Nietzsche warned against the collapse of society that would occur because of nihilism. He believed that nihilism would lead to nationalism, and that is indeed what happened.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra touched on many direct questions and gave many direct ideas. It is from Thus Spoke Zarathustra that we obtain the phrase “god is dead”. Nietzsche describes the concept of the “Superman”. This man is not in any way special. He’s not an evolved form of human or anything of that nature. He possesses no greater intelligence than the average man, nor any super strength. He is a man like you and I.

HI Karen, I’ve own PATINA and SATIN TAUPE for years and years…. I cant live without my PATINA. During the daytime, Patina is pretty enough to wear alone for a natural look. But at night, Patina goes with perfect underneath almost any color.Its about time Patina got some love!!!

I don’t think I would use calendula. Even in the smallest amount it could still be dangerous. Just my thought. The other recipe is fabulous and coconut oil as well as Shea butter are both safe if ingested.

These are awesome images!! When you link to Flickr accounts, though, can you please provide some text indicating the name of the photographer and their flickr name? Beyond just a link – it’ll help your SEO and that will in turn drive more traffic to the people whose work you are building your post out of. Win-win, plus you’ll be giving the proper attribution.Thank you for sharing!

Hi Tony,Please read the post again; if the price is too high then no-one will would pay, which is clearly not the case.Regarding unfollowing, it’s a feature that was repeatedly requested, and on which I receive a lot of feedback, so I don’t really understand where I’m going wrong.

One thing is that if you are searching for a student loan you may find that you’ll want a cosigner. There are many circumstances where this is correct because you could find that you do not have a past credit history so the mortgage lender will require that you’ve someone cosign the financing for you. Good post.

It's also interesting to compare this to The Hunger Games where the people in the Capitol don't really see that they are watching CHILDREN MURDERING ONE ANOTHER. But some of Katniss's helpers are actually genuinely upset that it is HER.

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Ty,Obama thought that being meek and apologetic for our success would endear us to these countries. Sorry Mr. President….they hate us more. Perhaps because they already know we were successful and lying about it just infuriates them more.

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Congratulations on your first year, neighbour!Nice to hear your experiences and where you get your traffic from. It’s interesting what the Google searches pick up. I had a spike for a on post about melting Icelandic glaciers when the record Greenland melt was in the news. It’s also nice that once the back-catalogue builds up, they provide a trickle of hits.I really liked the Himalayas stuff, and the Open Access theme. Nice work!

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what are the pricing of click, or are there other options… and when will video overlay of product placement be implemented… then pre-roll and mid-roll can be ELIMINATED!we are already working on it for our web-series and will look forward to your figuring that out for us :)www.smokinyogi.com

why donâ€™t you like Itoshi no Playgirl? I don’t know. Some songs you like, some songs you don’t like. downside of that performance..was probably Yabu’s shirt going up a bit too high , exposing a little of his stomacheâ€¦I’d consider that an upside actually. -good luck with your assassination project ^^b those birds need to learn to be quiet.I know!thanks for the links~You’re welcome. ^^

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— I’ve heard about that series! I will pick them up, thanks. Though I think I need to get on with reading Kim Harrison’s PALE DEMON and now Jim Butcher’s GHOST STORY, too. I’m way behind on my reading, I tell ya.<3,-J

I am very lucky to have bought UD Alice in Wonderland Palette, it's very expensive though! but i like the colors anyway :)I also saw in the UK, Claire's have come out with Alice in Wonderland themed accessories, from headbands to bracelets to necklaces.

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“Some of us believe Obama is a ….” And some of you conservatives still believe the world is flat, too.BTW, George W. Bush has already driven us into recession and weakened our military. Where were you the last 8 years?

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Get a cable or DSL router and connect them to your pc and Xbox360. That way both devices will be able to share your Internet connection. Failing that, connect a switch (or a hub if your desperate) to the ethernet port on your modem. A router is the best way to go if you have the money as it allows you to control the network and the Internet connection from one device. Just go with what your wallet allows, both will be adequate.Chris

As long as scarcity exists, robots won't be primary cause of a structural unemployment problem.We certainly are far away from eliminating scarcity: people in the US need a lot more services (health care, education, eldercare, child care). People in developing countries need a lot more hard goods. We have a lot of work to do fixing environmental damage (fisheries, ocean acidification, climate change, species extinctions, etc, etc).Robots will cause the same transitional problems we have always had: what to do with farm workers, horse carriage manufacturers, railway workers, auto workers, etc, etc, etc.

Augustine then would call for a Christian and Justice-based polity…In any case: could it be that the Malandros are the new Caudillos? Some of them will grow old, marry into “alcurnia” (and be legitimised in their wealth) and become the new propertied classes.

AMEN Pastor ! Such a blessing to be part of the Glenfield Intermediate years….God is so good. A late but very big congratulations to our 22nd Anniversary !!! May the latter be so much more than the former !!!!

That's so funny! I like what the Pheasant stands for, but his menu choices let him down on the day. So many people didn't like his starter and main, which is a shame…!!! Thanks for your comment sweets!!!

One little correction that I’d like to make, Farhan. You said that to this very day, Michael Jackson still has hundreds of millions of worldwide fans. Actually, to this very day, Michael Jackson still has BILLIONS of worldwide fans. In fact, Michael Jackson has the largest fan-base of ANYTHING in this ENTIRE world. I’m also a Michael Jackson fan myself – ALWAYS have been, STILL am and ALWAYS will be. FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!! =D

Some days it would be nice to be rescued, not just from babies that will never be, but the small things, prea. For someone with bipolar disorder, madness is almost a sure thing during a crisis like this one. But wait–

Well, you guessed right, here I am I was going to comment before you namechecked me, just to say what a sensational piece of work this is. It’s astounding how far sauropod models have come in the last ten years. In particular, it does my heart good to see the super-thick, near-triangular-in-cross-section neck, something that Apatosaurus sculptors have almost universally got wrong in the past.Regarding the trough along the top of the neck: it’s not completely clear in the photos here, but it looks like it’s very subtle. I wouldn’t rule it out.

This is precisely why the bbplan is flawed. If the goal is to get broadband to more rural customers, then look at what's currently working. The plan as I understand it, wants to install the rules that have led to these areas with no broadband, everywhere. Seems counter intuitive.

Legal judgements and sentimental gestures in the back of a comic… couldn’t Marvel do full page honors in every book for a month?? And meanwhile creators still battle each other online. Sounds like a grand scheme.

I'm really astounded that people are not only so tactless but also so nosy and intrusive. I never ask strangers questions about their lives (their clothes, sure, sometimes. You got to track down a great pair of boots when you see one). Maybe it's a big city thing? But I know people here with twins or multiracial or adopted children get just as many stupid questions. I'm sad at the total lack of civility people have around the issues of race and family building, and I wonder where it came from?

Bah-hahahaha! I had visions of the Titanic scene, but with a much curvier woman!Oh good, I’m not the only one who doesn’t clean the oven! The self-cleaner did squat though – the crap that is stuck to the inside of our oven door is obviously not coming off! Oh well!

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Cheers, Kar – yes, she's up for the Kerry too.Dan – She speaks very well about her own work. She can be cryptic at times but she always has interesting things to say.Niamh – I'm guessing she means they are not afraid of the raw and the strange.I'd never equate 'women writers' as a term with a term like 'lady-doctor' which I think is derogatorily used (reductive). I don't see 'women writers' as the same thing. More celebratory. The sisterhood!

The covers are great and this was an amazing week with allt the books highlighted. I would love to be able to read them since I have not had a chance yet but this author has always been one that has interested me. sdylion(at)gmail(dot)com

I suggest that AJ reads the book “The best way to rob a bank is to own one” by William K Black a former bank regulator in the USA. He makes it clear that the present economic mess has it roots in the deliberate frauds of the American savings & loan industry dating back to Reagan’s presidency. I doubt if anything much has changed today.

I am preparing for a retreat I am giving to some men in formation for the Permanent Diaconate and came across this blog entry. It is really beautiful and accurate. I have seen Satan attack so often, and in particular when we are trying to follow God’s will.I’d love to share this with the men, with your permission. Deacon Dennis Dorner

I’m at outrage at the stereotyping of Italians in this post…No, not really.And I love attending all my local state and county fairs, especially for the goats. Oh yes, I love seeing the goats piss and shit on each other in those pens. I’ve even had the privilege of seeing one billy goat fuck another.Yay!

No truer words! Thank you for the reminder Julian. Ryan knows the trouble my church is currently facing, his encouragement and now your reminder serve me well to continue to focus on what is truly important.The never failing, indisputable truth found in the word of God, our Father. Thank you for the reminder “to be” part of the solution, speak up and out based on God’s guidence, and not sit on the sideline watching my church self destruct.

yea, you are in quite a predicament. I really don’t think there’s anything you can do short of just finding the car and getting it back. You could take your contract to the bank to protect your credit but this is not going to be easy no matter what. The car is still registered and insured in your name…they may have warrants for you in memphis because of what he did in your car! make note to self and try to avoid such things in the future. You likely don’t have good info on the guy!good luck.

it’s always disheartening to have a clergyman write that they are a member of the Party of Death, as Cardinal Burke refers to the modern Democratic Party. I suspect if Jesus Himself told that clergyman to disassociate himself with that Party, he would tell Jesus, no, because after all, they support the Minimum Wage, the greatest Sacrament of all. If this were 1960 NO Roman Catholic would dare to identify themselves with the Democratic Party, if abortion on demand had been allowed then. It would have been the end to their membership in the Church.

to continue with the festivities, I would do so. However, if she ultimately decides to call the wedding off, then I would politely ask her to reimburse me for the costs involved with the shower and etc.

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I am not a highly educated individual and it is beyond me why people can’t understand that capital gains is paid on interest/gains on money that has already been earned and taxed. Why should anyone pay taxes on money twice. Am I wrong?